All Figures

Figure 1: Brightness of the two quasar images displayed with no correction for gravitational lens time delay. The brightness of quasar image A (upper record with square data markers), has been fitted with a sine curve having 0.04 mag amplitude. The lower record, with triangular markers, appears to have the same sinusoidal brightness curve with zero lag, even though at most epochs data for the gravitationally lensed images show a lag of 417 days.

Open with DEXTER


In the text

Figure 2: Quasar brightness displayed for measured time delay. The upper record shows the same data and fit for image A as displayed in Fig. 1. The lower data markers (triangles) are the brightness measurements for image B measured 417 days (the gravitational lens time delay) later, but with 417 subtracted from the Julian dates for plotting. If the image A brightness fluctuations are intrinsic to the quasar, they should be seen also in image B 417 days later, but the two are seen not to match as well as the 0 lag comparison in Fig. 1.

Open with DEXTER


In the text

Figure 3: Quasar brightness with 417-day lag for the opposite image pair. The lower record is the Fig. 1 data for image B, with the data for image A measured 417 days previously. The agreement is seen to be poor, especially near the end of the observational period, even though the theory of gravitational lenses shows that the time delay must produce agreement for 417 days. If the measured sinusoidal oscillation seen in both images A and B (Fig. 1) is a chance coincidence of two quasar oscillations separated by 417 days, there must be agreement for both A data with corrected B data (Fig. 2) and B data with corrected A data (this figure). Comparing Fig. 1 with Figs. 2 and 3 shows best agreement for 0 lag, contrary to gravitational lens time delay theory.

Open with DEXTER


In the text

	Figure 4: Oscillations of quasar image brightness caused by the loop depending: a) on mass per unit length  in g/cm, b) on transverse velocity of loop in units of the speed of light, c) on minimal distance  between image and center of the loop in units of R, d) on angle between loop direction and direction from the loop center to the image at t=0 in degrees.
Open with DEXTER


In the text

	Figure 5: Oscillations of quasar image magnification predicted by the cosmic string model. Upper and lower curves are shifted up and down by 0.05 and fitted to image A and B brightness records, respectively.
Open with DEXTER


In the text

Figure 6: a) View of the lens galaxy microlensed by the string loop at t=0. A and B show the position of quasar images. Loop positions in different moments of time are indicated as well. Simultaneously b) the caustics (shown sideways) and the boundaries of the image doubling zone ( upper and lower) in the plane of the galaxy and c) the critical curves around the loop edges in the lens plane are presented.

Open with DEXTER


In the text